Steve Bull's Blog, page 1176
March 2, 2018
Someone Tell a Reporter: the Rich are Destroying the Earth
“I Said Why? They Said They Didn’t Know”
Let history record that on Wednesday, September 6th, 2017, 14 days after climate change-fueled Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas and 4 days before Hurricane Irma hit southern Florida, the climate-denying President of the United States Donald Trump went to North Dakota to deliver a “tax reform” speech before hundreds of workers and managers at a major oil refinery. The president made comments so senseless and stupid that one must read them twice to believe they were uttered:
“I…want to tell the people of North Dakota and the Western states who are feeling the pain of the devastating drought that we are with you 100 percent — 100 percent. (Applause.) And I’ve been in close touch, numerous times, with our Secretary of Agriculture, who is doing a fantastic job, Sonny Perdue, who has been working with your governor and your delegation to help provide relief. And we’re doing everything we can, but you have a pretty serious drought. I just said to the governor, I didn’t know you had droughts this far north. Guess what? You have them. But we’re working hard on it and it’ll disappear. It will all go away.”
Then Trump got into the real eco-cidal meat of the matter – the de-regulation of energy and the lifting of restrictions on fossil fuel extraction and burning:
“We’re getting rid of one job-killing regulation after another. We’ve lifted the restrictions on shale oil. We’ve lifted those restrictions on energy of all types. We’re putting our miners back to work. We’ve cancelled restrictions on oil and natural gas. We’ve ended the EPA intrusion into your jobs and into your lives. (Applause.) And we’re refocusing the EPA on its core mission: clean air and clean water. (Applause.).
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Tor Project “Almost 100% Funded By The US Government”: FOIA
The Tor Project – a private nonprofit known as the “NSA-proof” gateway to the “dark web,” turns out to be almost “100% funded by the US government” according to documents obtained by investigative journalist and author Yasha Levine.
The Tor browser, launched in 2001, utilizes so-called “onion routing” technology developed by the US Navy in 1998 to provide anonymity over computer networks.
In a recent blog post, Levine details how he was able to obtain roughly 2,500 pages of correspondence via FOIA requests while performing research for a book. The documents include strategy, contract, budgets and status updates between the Tor project and its primary source of funding; a CIA spinoff known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which “oversees America’s foreign broadcasting operations like Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe.”
By following the money, I discovered that Tor was not a grassroots. I was able to show that despite its indie radical cred and claims to help its users protect themselves from government surveillance online, Tor was almost 100% funded by three U.S. National Security agencies: the Navy, the State Department and the BBG. Following the money revealed that Tor was not a grassroots outfit, but a military contractor with its own government contractor number. In other words: it was a privatized extension of the very same government that it claimed to be fighting.
The documents conclusively showed that Tor is not independent at all. The organization did not have free reign to do whatever it wanted, but was kept on a very short leash and bound by contracts with strict contractual obligations. It was also required to file detailed monthly status reports that gave the U.S. government a clear picture of what Tor employees were developing, where they went and who they saw. –Yasha Levine
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
March 1, 2018
Will the Center hold?
Will the Center hold?
The photo above is William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
“The Second Coming”
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
the falcon cannot hear the falconer;
things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned;
the best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
when a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
a shape with lion body and the head of a man,
a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
that twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
and what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
I find there is something visceral about Yeat’s poem “The Second Coming”, his words and phrases reach into my gut, grab hold, and demand my attention. His poem has been often quoted when people write about social change. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold… The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” These lines seem to perfectly describe events unfolding today. Yeats wrote this poem after the end of the First World War, a time of great social and civil unrest. The poem captures more than just political unrest and violence of his time.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Status Quo Will Reign
The Status Quo Will Reign
This month’s stock market correction is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Many have even begun to wonder if the era of dark money was truly over.
How will the recent correction affect the Fed’s dark money policies?
The consensus explanation for the correction was that inflation was rising and that would precipitate faster rate increases. The Feb. 2 unemployment report gave the impression that higher worker wages could lead to a higher inflationary trend.
I don’t buy this at all. I believe these fears of inflation are overblown.
As my colleague Jim Rickards has explained, the Feb. 2 report revealed that total weekly wages were actually declining and that labor force participation was unchanged. And the year-over-year gain in wages only seemed impressive compared with the extremely weak wage growth of recent years.
After accounting for existing inflation, Jim argued, the real gain was only 0.9%. That’s weak relative to the 3% or even 4% real wage gains typically associated with economic expansions since the end of World War II.
In short, Jim concludes, “the story about the “hot” economy with inflation right around the corner does not hold water.”
I agree.
Meanwhile, the latest report on U.S Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the fourth quarter of 2017 was nothing to write home about. At 2.6% annual growth, it was 0.3% lower than expectations. That’s not the sign of an overheating economy. But those in the financial media considered it positive because it showed 2.80% growth in real personal consumption.
But if you look beneath the surface, what you’d see is that consumers aren’t actually doing well across three core areas that “govern the ability of individuals to spend.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Putin: If Attacked, Russia Will Respond With New “Unstoppable” Nukes
A day after his foreign minister accused the US of violating the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, Russian President Vladimir Putin shocked his audience during his annual state of the union address to his country’s political elite by claiming Russia had developed new nuclear weapons that cannot be shot down by US anti-ballistic missile defenses, according to the Sun.
The missiles, Putin said, are capable of striking almost any point on Earth.
Russia is testing the new line of strategic, nuclear-capable weapons, the president said, as he showed video and animation of Russian ICBMs, cruise missiles and other weapons that he said have been developed by Russia as a result of the US pulling out of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty, the Guardian reported.
In what sounded like an implicit threat, Putin said Russia has repeatedly warned Washington not to go ahead with anti-missile systems that Moscow fears could erode its nuclear deterrent. However “nobody listened to us. Listen now,” he said, to a loud ovation from the crowd of legislators, officials and dignitaries.
While he stressed that Russia isn’t “threatening anyone,” he asserted that, if attacked, Russia wouldn’t hesitate to respond with a nuclear strike. Per the Guardian, the Russian president’s remarks risk sparking an arms race between the Russian Federation and the US reminiscent of the US-Soviet arms race during the Cold War, according to RT.
“Our nuclear doctrine says Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons only in response to a nuclear attack or an attack with other weapons of mass destruction against her or her allies, or a conventional attack against us that threatens the very existence of the state.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Oil Market Fears: War, Default And Nuclear Weapons
The U.S. is one of the few areas of the world in which there is an energy investment boom underway, a development that could smooth out the uncertainties of geopolitical events around the world. At the same time, outside of the U.S., there is a deterioration of stability in many oil-producing regions, aggravating risks for both oil companies and the oil market, according to a new report.
Financial risk firm Verisk Maplecroft explores these two trends as they play out simultaneously. The U.S. shale sector has emerged from years of low oil prices, damaged but still intact. Importantly, the shale industry “can ride out price dips and respond quickly to upticks, weakening OPEC in the process,” James Lockhart-Smith, director of financial sector risk at Verisk Maplecroft, wrote in the report. Combined with deregulation at the federal level, the oil industry is in the midst of an investment boom in the U.S.
Meanwhile, things are not so rosy elsewhere. Verisk Maplecroft surveyed a long list of countries, and produced its Government Stability Index (GSI), which uses some predictive data and analysts forecasts to take stock of geopolitical risk in various countries over the next few years.
The results are not encouraging. The number of countries expected to see a deterioration of stability “significantly outnumber those we see becoming more stable,” the firm said. The reasons are multiple, including low oil prices, but also the erosion of democratic institutions. Related: Something Unexpected Just Happened In LNG Markets
“We don’t see increasing instability necessarily ending in coups or significant political upheaval, but a less predictable above-ground-risk environment is likely to emerge,” Verisk Maplecroft’s Lockhart-Smith said. “Arbitrary decision making, possible measures to buy off key stakeholders or an inability to pass regulatory reforms will be the main risks to projects in these countries, as their governments seek to stabilise and maintain their influence.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Chart Predicts Every Market Crash in History
The Fed blows bubbles. Then it eventually pops them. Where are we in the cycle?
Bill Bonner writes This Has Predicted Every Market Crash in History.
I recreated the chart in Fred and added trendlines. But let’s tune in to Bill Bonner.
“Buy the dip” has worked for the last 38 years. And now, investors are more than 100% convinced that it will work again. But they are wrong. Every major stock market decline and every recession in the last 100 years was preceded by the Federal Reserve raising short-term interest rates by enough to provide the pin to prick the balloon.
Note the emphasis on every. Yes, there have been periods where the Fed raised rates and a recession didn’t ensue. Everyone knows the famous saying about the stock market having predicted nine of the past five recessions! That may be true, that rising rates don’t necessarily cause a recession. But as an investor, you must be aware that every major stock market decline occurred on the heels of a tightening phase by the Fed. More importantly, there have been no substantive Fed tightening phases that did not end with a stock market decline.*
This is an economy built on debt. The whole capital structure – stocks, bonds, and real estate – now depends on excess debt… and more of it.
In a correction, the only way to stop stock prices from falling and the economy from shrinking is to bring in some more debt. But when you do that a few times, you are soon beyond Peak Debt… which is to say, you’re way over the legal limit.
Debt has been growing three to six times faster than income for more than an entire generation. This makes the old 1.5-to-1 ratio of debt to income seem quaint. It is now 3.5-to-1 nationwide.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Experts for the People—Shut Out by the Mass Media
Ever wonder how the television, radio and newspaper people select whom they are going to interview or get quotes from when they are reporting the news or producing a feature? I do. What I’ve learned is that they go to guests that are connected with the established powers—such as think tanks in Washington, D.C. that work on “the military-industrial complex” policy (to borrow President Eisenhower’s words) and somehow lean toward more warmongering (e.g. NPR and the U.S.-Iran relationship) or backing more weapon systems (such as a new nuclear bomb arsenal and more F-35s and aircraft carriers).
You won’t be hearing from MIT Professor Emeritus Ted Postal on the chronic failures of the anti-ballistic missile program (spending $13 billion this coming year).
Whether it is NPR, PBS, the network news programs, the Sunday news interview shows and too often the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal their interviewees are the defenders of the status quo or those with corporatists’ viewpoints.
These news outlets seem oblivious to the blatant economic conflicts of interest inherent in groups such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and professors who moonlight with corporations. These interviewees have economic and ideological axes to grind that are not disclosed to the general viewers, listeners and readers, when they are merely described as “experts.”
There are real experts and specialists, with no axe to grind, who are so ignored by the media that they have almost become nonpersons, despite their past proven records of achievements for the public interest, and for the people’s well-being.
Here are some examples of experienced people whose veracity and honesty you can take to the press and media outlets:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
America’s Democracy Hypocrisy
In late February, Venezuela’s government began accepting presidential candidate registrations and announced a snap legislative election for April. The country’s opposition denounces the process as a sham and Maduro as a dictator, both of which may be true.
Oddly, a third voice — the US government — also weighed in. Per US state media outlet Voice of America, “the United States, which under President Donald Trump has been deeply critical of Maduro’s leadership in crisis-torn and economically suffering Venezuela, on Saturday rejected the call for an early legislative vote.”
Given the perpetual public pearl-clutching over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, that’s some major league chutzpah.
The US State Department wants “‘a free and fair election’ involving full participation of all political leaders, the immediate release of all political prisoners, credible international observation and an independent electoral authority.
Let’s take that one at a time.
Participation of all political leaders? In some US states, it’s harder for a third party to get on a ballot than in, say, Iran.
The immediate release of all political prisoners? Last I heard, US president Donald Trump hadn’t pardoned (among others) Leonard Peltier.
Credible international observation? The US proper committed to admitting international election observers in the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe’s 1990 Copenhagen Document, but many US states forbid international observers or, for that matter, local observers who aren’t affiliated with one of the two ruling parties.
Electoral authorities? The two ruling parties control them all and routinely use them to suppress threatened competition, as do pseudo-private entities like the Commission on Presidential Debates, which makes giant illegal (but government approved) in-kind contributions to the Republican and Democratic candidates in the form of televised candidate beauty pageants which exclude the opposition parties.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Turkey Wants to Invade the Greek Islands
Turkish propagandists also have been twisting facts to try to portray Greece as the aggressor.
Although Turkey knows that the islands are legally and historically Greek, Turkish authorities want to occupy and Turkify them, presumably to further the campaign of annihilating the Greeks, as they did in Anatolia from 1914 to 1923 and after.
Any attack against Greece should be treated as an attack against the West.
There is one issue on which Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), are in complete agreement: The conviction that the Greek islands are occupied Turkish territory and must be reconquered. So strong is this determination that the leaders of both parties have openly threatened to invade the Aegean.
The only conflict on this issue between the two parties is in competing to prove which is more powerful and patriotic, and which possesses the courage to carry out the threat against Greece. While the CHP is accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP party of enabling Greece to occupy Turkish lands, the AKP is attacking the CHP, Turkey’s founding party, for allowing Greece to take the islands through the 1924 Treaty of Lausanne, the 1932 Turkish-Italian Agreements, and the 1947 Paris Treaty, which recognized the islands of the Aegean as Greek territory.
In 2016, Erdoğan said that Turkey “gave away” the islands that “used to be ours” and are “within shouting distance.” “There are still our mosques, our shrines there,” he said, referring to the Ottoman occupation of the islands.
Two months earlier, at the “Conference on Turkey’s New Security Concept,” Erdoğan declared: “Lausanne… has never been a sacred text. Of course, we will discuss it and struggle to have a better one.” Subsequently, pro-government media outlets published maps and photos of the islands in the Aegean, calling them the territory that “Erdoğan says we gave away at Lausanne.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
